1

Report
Minutes

Comrade Lenin maintains that a sort of indifference to the
question of insurrection has been noticeable since the beginning
of September. But this is impermissible if we are issuing the
slogan of the seizure of power by the Soviets in all
seriousness. It is therefore high time to pay attention to the
technical aspect of the question. Apparently a lot of time has
already been lost.

Nevertheless the question is an urgent one, and the decisive
moment is near.

The international situation is such that we must take the
initiative.

What is being done to surrender territory as far as Narva, and
to surrender Petrograd makes it still more imperative for us to
take decisive action.

The political situation is also working impressively in this
direction. Decisive action on our part on July 3, 4 and 5 would
have failed because we did not have the majority behind
us. Since then we have made tremendous progress.

Absenteeism and indifference on the part of the masses is due to
their being tired of words and resolutions.

We now have the majority behind us. Politically, the situation
is fully ripe for taking power.

The agrarian movement is also developing in that direction, for
it is obvious that extreme effort would be needed to stem that
movement. The slogan of the transfer of all land has become the
general slogan of the peasants. The political situation,
therefore, is mature. We must speak of the technical
aspect. That is the crux of the matter. Nevertheless we, like
the defencists, are inclined to regard the systematic
preparation of an uprising as something in the nature of a
political sin.

It is senseless to wait for the Constituent Assembly that will
obviously not be on our side, for this will only make our task
more involved.

The regional congress and the proposal from Minsk[2] must be used
for the beginning of decisive action.

2

Resolution

The Central Committee recognises that the international position
of the Russian revolution (the revolt in the German navy which
is an extreme manifestation of the growth throughout Europe of
the world socialist revolution; the threat of peace by the
imperialists with the object of strangling the revolution in
Russia) as well as the military situation (the indubitable
decision of the Russian bourgeoisie and Kerensky and Co. to
surrender Petrograd to the Germans), and the fact that the
proletarian party has gained a majority in the Soviets—all
this, taken in conjunction with the peasant revolt and the swing
of popular confidence towards our Party (the elections in
Moscow), and, finally, the obvious preparations being made for a
second Kornilov revolt (the withdrawal of troops from Petrograd,
the dispatch of Cossacks to Petrograd, the encircling of Minsk
by Cossacks, etc.)—all this places the armed uprising on
the order of the day.

Considering therefore that an armed uprising is inevitable, and
that the time for it is fully ripe, the Central Committee
instructs all Party organisations to be guided accordingly, and
to discuss and decide all practical questions (the Congress of
Soviets of the Northern Region, the withdrawal of troops from
Petrograd, the action of our people in Moscow and Minsk, etc.)
from this point of view.

Footnotes

[1] The
Meeting of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. on October 10
(23), 1917, was the first one Lenin attended after
his return to Petrograd from Vyborg. Sverdlov was in the
chair. Lenin gave a report on the current situation. The Central
Committee adopted the resolution motioned by Lenin who proposed
immediate preparations for an armed uprising. Only Zinoviev and
Kamenev voted against the proposal. Trotsky abstained, but he
held that it had to be postponed until the Second Congress of
Soviets, which in practice meant bungling the insurrection and
allowing the Provisional Government to pull up its forces to
crush the uprising on the day the Congress opened. The Central
Committee rebuffed the capitulants. The October 10 meeting of
the Central Committee is of tremendous historical
importance. The resolution on the uprising adopted by 10 to 2
became the Bolshevik Party's directive in starting immediate
preparations for an insurrection. To direct the insurrection,
the Central Committee set up a Political Bureau headed by
Lenin.

[2]The
reference is to Sverdlov's report to the Central Committee on
October 10 (23),1917, on the third item of the agenda: "Minsk
and the Northern Front". He said that there was a technical
possibility of staging an armed uprising in Minsk, and that
Minsk had offered to send a revolutionary corps to help
Petrograd.